


Like A Bullet To The Stomach

by newspapersinyourshoes



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, Agent Carter - Freeform, Angst, Angst and Feels, Awesome Howling Commandos, Awesome Sarah Rogers, BAMF Peggy Carter, Brooklyn, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Friends, Death, Dialogue Light, Friends to Lovers, Great Depression, Heavy Angst, Historical Accuracy, Historical Inaccuracy, Hurt/Comfort, Irish Sarah Rogers, Kinda shitty, M/M, My First Fanfic, Not enough comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve you dumbass, Stucky - Freeform, Violence, War, War Trauma, World War II, but you knew that, catfa, like entirely stucky, major Stucky, pre-war stucky, so much hurt, sorry I just suck at dialogue, steve/bucky - Freeform, there can be both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22650502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newspapersinyourshoes/pseuds/newspapersinyourshoes
Summary: "They orbited each other endlessly, each pulled along by the other's gravity, closer and farther, closer and farther until finally they'd be able to meet in the place you could only arrive at."Glimpses into Steve's and Bucky's life (they share one, after all), both in Brooklyn and in Europe; from alley to battlefield.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 16
Kudos: 21





	1. War 1943

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago, and it's rough. I'll try and edit as I go, but no promises.  
> Please let me know if anything is historically off, I didn't do as much research as I should have.
> 
> Chapters will alternate either Youth (pre-war) or War, in chronological order.
> 
> (Previously published by @barryallenisravenclaw)

BOOM.

The resounding crash comes first, but it's the high-pitched whining in the ears that lingers. James should be used to it, he's heard shells go off plenty of times. Perhaps this one feels a little different because it whizzed deathly close to his ear seconds before it detonated.

He can hear muffled voices, but the guy next to him has to repeat the words three time before James can make them out over the whining. "Goddammit Barnes, reload already!"

The soldier slams himself against the tree he was crouching behind, looking repeatedly over his shoulder as he hastily shoves a fresh cartridge into the rifle. Bits of mud fly into his eyes as his companion sprints to the next tree, slowing the process by four seconds he doesn't have. The attack has only lasted about half an hour so far, but the shells have been going off since before the sun came up.

James peers around the tree and takes aim at a boxy grey figure outlined by the weak sun atop a tank, but his usual perfect shot is a near miss. Stunned, he blinks, and squinted against the dreary Italian mist. The figure is gone, but it doesn't look like it was standing on a tank at all. James has been on the front a couple months now, he knows what a real tank looks like. He knows that most of war isn't heroic battles and exciting strategies, it's mostly waiting and marching and goddam boring. This - thing - that's plowing across the field, it's not a tank.

And it's shooting blue lasers.

No, James reminds himself. Lasers are fiction. Stuff they put in the pulps. Besides, these things don't look like any laser he's seen on any dime novel cover. They're definitely more menacing, and they make a sharp whining sound before they are fired. 

He turns to his left, gesturing to the soldier nearest him. "Thompson! What the hell is this?!"

"We don't know, sir! They showed up right after the last wave of shells!"

"Krauts?"

"Does it matter?"

He has a point. Despite everything, there was one thing special training had taught James Barnes. Enemies are not nations or flags or uniforms. Enemies are people. More precisely, enemies are the people currently shooting at you, whatever nationality they are. And so the sergeant shakes himself once more, and starts running from tree to tree, trying to get a better angle and getting as close as he can to throw a grenade.

Say what you want about the hasty military training in the States, James is an exemplary soldier, and he knows it. Granted, the U.S. only had so much say in his particular training, or so he gathered. Almost right after being put through basic, he was shipped straight to England and shoved on a truck with nineteen other guys from all over. An inquisitive black-haired dame with big specs had told them they were to be trained with the S.A.S., and that whoever got through the trials would be shipped wherever they were needed, and that was that. Three months later there were three men left on the compound: the commanding officer, James, and the other guy who did well enough in the "trials". It's that exact training that is racing through his head as he continues to dodge bullets, or lasers, or. whatever these things are. 

But all of his training and a childhood in the slums of Brooklyn don't tell his body what to do when he realizes there are more corpses on his side of the field. When he realizes that one by one, the guys around him are dropping guns and falling to their knees. When he himself suddenly feels the weight of the past two days, and collapses to the ground staring blankly ahead as charcoal-clad figures tie up his wrists.

The only clear thought in his head is that Steve isn't here, Steve isn't here, Steve isn't here, and right now he thinks that might be the only thing that really matters.


	2. Youth 1926

The shouts and laughter follow the boy with increasing threat as he races around the corner and into an empty alley, feeble heart about to burst, palms clammy and body barely upright with fatigue. He pauses, panting heavily, and that is his first mistake. As he does so the older boys catch up easily to him, the light of violence a dark spark in their eyes. The boy eyes them wearily, but does not shrink away. Second mistake.

Another boy is walking past the alley, on his way home when he hears the laughing and harsh voices. This boy knows enough to keep walking with his head down when he hears that sort of thing, but a different voice draws him closer to the fight.

If one can call it a fight, that is. Several boys who must be at least two years older than himself are giving the worst soaking James has ever seen to a scrawny blonde kid who's barely standing up now. James isn't sure why he intervenes, it's pretty stupid, really. But as he does something clicks in his brain, something so small he hardly registers it over the shouting and teasing.

"Hey! Leave him alone, punks!" His voice is high and young, and it's a wonder it does anything all. James pushes the kid behind him, and is surprised by how little effort it takes to push him out of harm's way.

"Make me!"

And James Barnes throws the first punch of his life, and surprises himself by how well he can. The older boy goes tumbling backward, his cronies swarming towards James. But one vicious look from James' eyes sends them scrambling. He turns to face the other boy.

The victim, as it turns out, is the fiercest person James will ever meet. Bruised and bloody and wheezing with weak lungs, his eyes gleam with conviction. 

James holds out his hand. "You want some help, kid?"

"I'm fine." His voice is quiet, but crystal clear. He stares up at James challengingly.

"You sure? You look pretty banged up..." He reaches his hand forward in a peace offering. The boy eyes it wearily. "I promise I won't bite. I ain't like those idiots." He smiled gently at the scrawny boy, who took his hand in an awkward sort of shake and used it to stand up slowly.

"Steve Rogers."

"James Buchanan Barnes." Steve has unnervingly blue eyes, the kind that are looking into you and over your shoulder at the same time. James is absolutely mesmerized by them.

Steve gives a half smile. "That's an awful mouthful, ain't it?"

James shrugs. "People call me James."

Steve gave him a look. "Okay, James."

"Guess we's friends now, huh?"

"Guess so."


	3. War 1943

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment or interact with me in some way if you feel like it

The soldier cannot tell reality from nightmare anymore. Days and nights blur together and are only broken by the wicked sneer of the short scientist and the flash of needles and knives in the glare of the harsh light above the table. He repeats a name he does not know in a half-sleep, and cries out for no one at all when they stab and slice and cut.

And then there is a new noise, a panicked whining bell. The scientist stops in the middle of his work and packs up and runs, leaving behind a soldier who is no longer sure if he is entirely human.

Steve is sprinting down every hallway, punching walls angrily as he runs into them, frantically searching the compound for any trace of him. Sweat beads at his hairline and his heart feels like it's beating out of his chest, though it keeps a steady tempo and his muscles show no ache to match the sweat. But Bucky is not gone, he isn't allowed to be, not when Steve was just about to get him back.

And Steve is ready to kill by the time he spots the short man in an overcoat leaving hurriedly from a dank, dark room with an ominous green tinge. And he's about to follow that bastard, whoever he is, about to kill him with his bare hands, when he senses what has to be in the room. And he stutters to a halt, still a little uncertain on these long, powerful legs, when he hears the voice: the voice that is hoarse and cracked and weak and barely there but that's his voice, and Steve would know it in death, at the end of all things.

Steve doesn't know exactly what he was expecting, he had no time to prepare himself for the possibilities, but this...this is more than Steve can bear. Bucky is a ghost. His chapped lips tremble in the cold, goose bumps and cold sweat cover his skin, and he looks far thinner than he really is. There are bruises and scars and fresh incisions everywhere, and maybe it would be less frightening if Bucky didn't appear to have filled out, as though his muscles did the exact opposite of what they should have in captivity for so long.

And the captain is fighting down sobs as he rips the restraints from the sergeant's limp body, is trying to fathom that this is real, that the boy shivering on this table is both Bucky and someone else.

James Barnes' tired eyes widen in shock when he sees Steve's face - is it Steve? It looks like him, but it doesn't. But something in his brain that hasn't spoken since before he was captured tells him that this is Steve, it must be, how could it not be? Those are his eyes, and this is his scent, and what kind of tracker would Bucky be if he couldn't recognize Steve when he was half-dead? 

So he shuts up all his fear and weakness inside himself and covers his outsides in a brand of false bravado that shouldn't feel so familiar. And he leans on Steve instead of being carried by him, tries to walk on his own when all he needs is for Steve to pick him up and carry him all the way back across the damn ocean to be somewhere safe, to be with his Steve. He straps on a stolen gun and kills everything that moves, and it wouldn't be quite so frightening if it didn't feel like this was was Bucky had been built for.

The trek back from Austria takes about five days, and there isn't one hour Steve doesn't spend with his eyes trained on Bucky. Even the other men start noticing, but nobody says anything. This guy saved their asses, so nobody's stupid enough to go and get him pulled. They start noticing that this captain adds a considerable amount of time to the trip just by insisting that they take the absolute least physically exerting routes. They notice how his hand reflexively goes to Barnes' shoulders every few minutes, how he tenses up every time anyone gets within six feet of the sergeant. Friendship, philia, like this is nothing new to these boys raised in depression and coming of age in war. Still they can see the difference in the captain's eyes trained on his sergeant, in the way the sergeant's hands grip the captain's arm like a rosary. And if anyone notices that each night the captain sleeps on the far edge of camp, with his shield stuck up in the ground in front of him and his form curled protectively around a sergeant who thrashes and cried out in his sleep, well, nobody mentions that, either.


	4. Youth 1932

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *minor time jump at the line break, not more than a year though.

Steve has known his best friend for five years, and he is no longer James, but Bucky: something that slipped easily into their dialogue after a month of running around Park Slope. It's been five years, and Steve is still showing Bucky off to his mother.

It isn't without reason, of course. Bucky is talented and charming and witty and everything Steve wishes he could be. Sarah Rogers sees this too, although she senses something else in the boy that she doubts her son ever will. She also notices from the start how inseparable the two are. Within several weeks she hardly sees her son without the taller brunet by his side, following him everywhere like some kind of guard dog.

Which the sort of is, and Steve knows it. He knows the way Bucky surveys a room with new people every time they enter, because he is thirteen now and he is not so naive as he was before. He knows what it means when men call at dressed-up women across the street in the last hours of daylight. He knows the look of a guy looking to fight. He knows the bruises best of all. Whether from violence or fun, Steve knows the look of bruises as well as he knows Flatbush Avenue. He has given a few, sure, but not nearly so many as he has gotten himself. And not nearly so many as Bucky has gotten wading into fights and hauling Steve out.

They're too old to be getting into fights this way, his mother says after one particularly brutal scuffle where Steve nearly breaks a leg, and Bucky gets a cracked rib for his trouble. She tells him he and Bucky are honest, upstanding young gentlemen who don't need to resort to brute violence (Bucky doesn't mention that he may have had a couple of stolen rolls in his own pockets meant for Steve and his ma when they got caught up in the scrape). But Steve can see in his mother's eyes that she understands why Steve does it, and a part of him knows that she would never step down from it either. Bucky always teases him for picking fights, but deep down Steve has a funny feelings that Bucky can't help following him the way he does. It's felt like that for about as long as he can remember, really. Like he is constantly pulled along by Bucky, who is in turn pulled along by Steve.

And it's not fair to Bucky, Steve knows. Not fair that he should be tied down to someone like Steve when there's a whole world of opportunity waiting for a guy like Bucky to seize it. But he stays.

Times have gotten harder now, though. The Rogers still live in the tenement building Steve was born in, but just barely. Sarah pulls as many extra shifts at the hospital as she can manage, but Steve can tell she's missing out on a whole lotta sleep. Bucky's family is thinking of moving back to Indiana, something Bucky enjoys complaining about every chance he gets. Steve offers for Bucky to move in with him on several occasions, but Bucky always declines, joking that he really will have to move to Indiana to escape Steve's nagging.

He doesn't.

At age fifteen, Bucky Barnes moves in with the Rogers, sleeps on their run-down couch, and gets a job at a grocer down the street. The pay is terrible but so is everything else lately, and Bucky will do whatever it takes to earn his keep, even if it means dropping out of school.

Steve manages to stay in school a year or so longer, but eventually the illnesses and the need for money outweigh the benefits. With his free time Steve takes up drawing, and Bucky quickly becomes his favorite subject. His eyes, his hands, his tired, weary stance as he helps Sarah wash the dishes after another dinner of canned food and week-old soup, quickly fill the pages of the first gift Bucky ever buys Steve with his own money. At one point Steve tells Bucky that when they get out of there, he is going to be an artist and really make some money. They talk about that more than Bucky would like to admit, the idea that they will someday leave Brooklyn. That one day they'll have enough money for them to move upstate for cleaner air, or out west so Bucky can see the Grand Canyon. 

They end up staying, though, and after a while Bucky starts to wonder if they'll ever get the chance to leave this place. He wants to, sure, but a part of him that grows each day is beginning to see that maybe this is where they belong, mixed up in all this crime and dirt and steel and sweat. And Bucky is starting to think that even if he does get to travel as he so desperately wants, he will always end up back here. Even if the two of them get dragged across the corners of the Earth, James Barnes will probably end up right back here in New York, right next to Steve Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I used Park Slope as a likely place of residence because although it was originally a neighborhood of wealthy families around the 1890s, by the Depression it became populated by a large number of Irish working class families. I may have stretched this a little considering Sarah and Joseph Rogers probably immigrated before World War I, so apologies if this offends your Brooklyn sensibilities. Maybe they moved? I also considered using Windsor Terrace or Bay Ridge.


	5. War 1943

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a delivery from your local angst lord
> 
> *Because someone asked, I used Romanian as a nod to Sebastian, Romani peoples have been migrants across parts of Europe if I remember correctly, so either Bucky is referring to a relative who really was Romani (and possibly also lived in Romania), or his American brain mixed up the terms/slurs in his 1930s Brooklyn upbringing. His using the term "gypsy" is meant to reflect his contemporary attitudes and the American conceptions/prejudices around the term.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments welcome and very much appreciated :)

It's a dark room, in a dark building, in possibly the darkest place James has ever been. But Steve isn't here, so he knows that, somehow, he'll manage. He may not live, but he'll manage. 

Every day two bodies get dragged, each in different directions, past the tall cylindrical cage they've got him and a few other guys locked up in. One body gets dragged to the crematorium (he thinks) and another, still breathing, gets dragged to the place the others only whisper about, because the guys that go there are usually the bodies getting dragged the next morning.

Disease spreads like a wildfire in here, and about a week in a guy in a cage near him loses an ear to frostbite. The sergeant takes to cupping the sides of his head in his hands when he manages to sleep, a habit that settles in right next to the alternating schedule of who stays awake to keep the others alive. Mostly this falls on a strong-hearted man named Jones, because apparently he never sleeps anyway. 

The first two weeks or so are mostly just cold and hungry and cold and tired, and Steve isn't here. Until James Barnes does something he didn't think he had the wherewithal to do.

The guards come in at the same time they do everyday (God knows just what time that is, there is barely enough natural light to tell night from day), speaking rapid German with each other and ignoring the prisoners entirely save to unlock the cage and retrieve the next victim. Today they open the cage James is in. He glares at them both through their faceless black masks, daring to take him, better that than watch any more of these innocent people get dragged through hell and back every damn day. One guard's mask turns in his direction, and doesn't turn away as he reaches out with a snap and grabs the arm of a thin-looking guy who can't possibly be over eighteen.

And maybe James loses it a little but he doesn't give a shit, and he launches himself at the guards, trying to put himself in front of the kid. The guard doesn't flinch, just jabs him sharply with a baton that makes a little zap as it knocks James to the ground, breathing heavily and trying to push himself back up. The guards are gone now, and so is the kid.

And the others are staring at him with a combination of incredulity and gloomy concern. A British soldier helps him sit up and tries to keep him from drifting off. His eyelids flutter weakly, and James groans a little, clutching his side.

"My god, Barnes." The Brit whispers, sitting down next to him. Falsworth, James thinks. He doesn't remember much else than the guy's name. "You said you grew up in New York. Surely you know you can't do that in here! You'll be gone by morning."

"Ah, let 'em take me then." James mumbles, a shiver running down his spine as wisps of frozen air escape his chapped lips. "Got Gypsy blood in me anyway..." His words are blurring together, even in his own head. He just wants to fall asleep.

"Cut the bullshit, Sarge." Dugan glares down at him.

"No really, grandma was...Romanian...err...somethin'..."

And then James passes out, his hair falling into his eyes, curled in on himself and leaning almost upright against the cold iron bars. The other soldiers in the cage give each other knowing looks. They know that soon the nightmares will start again, just as they have the past week and a half. They know that soon James Barnes will mutter the same name in his sleep he's been muttering since he got dropped in this hell-hole, a name that is mumbled and whispered like a prayer as the sergeant jostles and turns in a restless sleep.

The next morning James is roused from one nightmare by another, and then he is watching a corpse get dragged out of the dark room, and he is being dragged along with it. He stares, dumbstruck, at the glassy eyes and stark white skin, realizing he's never been this close to a corpse before. Until a cut up bloody arm flops over and hits James with frightening weight, and he bites down the cry of fear that is shaking his very bones. Then the guard with a death grip on his arm turns down a new hallway and then he is strapped to a cold metal table, and a short but frightening man is bending over him, asking the guard in affected English about "specifications". And he nods at the German reply, but smiles a little when he examines James' face, staring right into his eyes and making him squirm. "Ah but there is...something else, too...yes, I believe we shall make good use of that..."

And James has taken plenty of beatings in his life, but this is a new kind of pain, an entirely new brand of terror and needles and and scalpels and beatings and strange poisons and hopelessness. And soon he isn't allowed to sleep anymore, and the only name that can ever manage to get past his raw throat is his own, but soon even that doesn't seem as real as it used to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, those WERE guest appearances from Jones, Morita, and Falsworth and Dugan of the Howling Commandos! In my head that group meets because they are all in the same cell. Angst CAN be useful to the plot.


	6. Youth 1936

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continuing my talent for avoiding dialogue

There is a lot of loss in the Great Depression. There is a lot of hurting. Steve knows this far too well, but it still stuns him every single morning. It stuns him to wake up and not hear his mother's voice. To come home and not embrace her sweet-smelling hair or feel her thin but firm arms around his shoulders. To suddenly remember every few moments that Sarah Rogers is gone now. 

He still has Bucky, and that's about it. He used to fear taking Bucky's presence for granted, but he knows now that he never will. Bucky never leaves his side those first few weeks, he spends the nights with him, making him eat and take medicine and sleep. And Steve will never be ashamed to say just how much hugging there is in that time. There is hugging when Steve wakes up, when he leaves, when they get home, when Steve breaks down in the middle of the apartment and sobs for hours with his head in his hands. That summer is the longest of Steve's life, and some nights the smell of Bucky's hair and the weight of his arms around Steve are the only thing making it shorter.

Steve is vaguely aware of his own amazement that Bucky has stayed. The Barnes moved back to Indiana a few years back, and they barely stay in New York a week after Sarah's death because of expense. And even when his sister begs him, Bucky still refuses to go back with them. Steve wishes he could say more, tell Bucky that he can go, that his family needs him, that it's alright, but it's not. Steve wants to say thank you so much more than he has, but he can't. All he can feel is empty with the loss of his mother. Empty, except for that little something deep down in his insides that's still beating with Bucky's support.

But sooner or later Steve does start to fell a small difference. He never fully recovers from his mother's death, but he remembers his mother saying that some things you just have to learn to live with, because you can't change them the way you wish you could. Acknowledging this is foreign to Steve, who has never yielded to anything in his life, not even the stubborn leak in the ceiling. Yet eventually, he grows accustomed to the stubborn perseverance of death. He starts noticing his surroundings again, and the feeling of getting hit in the face with the sudden realization of loss stops coming so often. He manages a fairly steady job, and he begins to see the sincerity in Bucky's smiles again. Starts to feel the strength of his hugs again, starts realizing that maybe it isn't something he'll ever grow out of. He isn't sure when exactly he realizes this, but it comes at some point that summer, in the midst of all the shit he and Bucky wade through, and he simply knows it now. He knows that Bucky will never ever leave, and Steve knows that he won't ever want him to.

And for some stupid reason his mind can never find the right way to tell Bucky this. Too scared, too shy, too busy; too afraid of losing the one thing he has left. He does it eventually, and it all comes to a head on one of those nights where the air clings to his skin and the feeling of the sun on his neck lingers long after sundown. The tension that has building between them for the past week finally breaks as the lights of Brooklyn begin flickering on one by one.

"How ya feelin'?" Bucky joins him at their window. Leaning out of it is the only way to catch any kind of breeze in this god-awful heat.

"Same as I felt the last three hundred times you asked me."

"Don't be an ass Steve. Got something' important to say." The August heat crushes any hope of lively conversation.

"Are you gonna say it or are we gonna sit here all night sweatin' to death?" Steve probably deserves that punch on the shoulder, but his mind is racing a little too fast for his mouth to keep up. He has to keep himself from turning to look into Bucky's face because that will make this harder, and if Bucky is finally leaving he needs to get it over with and learn to live with it.

Bucky cranes his neck around over the window sill, peering at Steve in that way of his that still unsettles Steve sometimes. "Looks like you got somethin' to say too."

Steve sighs, looking at his hands. Bucky is not making this any easier. "No, I'm fine. Sorry. What is it?"

"Just, uh..." Bucky shifts and glances at Steve. His brow furrows as though he can't quite bring himself to say what so clearly needs to. "I...I don't-listen, I'm not-" He sighs in frustration. "I don't...know what you been thinking lately but I ain't ever leavin', ever, and you need to...well...understand that, see?" He says the last part so quickly and decisively Steve can barely comprehend it. But he does.

Steve grips the window sill even tighter, his nerves searching for some kind of comfort from a breeze that will not come, his breath catching in his throat. The longer he looks at Bucky's face - brow furrowed and mouth in a sort of crestfallen smirk - the harder it gets to not embrace him as tightly as possible and give him all the comfort he never could.

He sucks in a breath. "I know, Buck."

"Do ya really? Cause lately I ain't sure you do. You been actin all weird, like you expect me to just up and leave ya and Steve..." He pauses. "I could never do that."

And Steve suddenly realizes the thing he has been trying not to realize all summer long. And they both turn towards each other at the same moment in a real stupid way and this whole thing is kind of stupid but Steve couldn't care less. And it's ridiculous, he thinks to himself, the way his nerves still get the best of him and he ducks his anxiously as he finally tells Bucky the thing he's been trying to, all summer long.

And Bucky is stunned. He cannot fathom that this goes both ways, that Steve could be so willing to go through hell for him, for some guy who can't even look Steve in the eye right now. Steve is brave and smart and tougher than nails and Bucky cannot imagine a world where he deserves him, yet here Steve is. And so Bucky embraces him and tells him that he feels it too, and they may have been inseparable before but now it feels as though the universe itself will never be able to squeeze between them. And Steve starts realizing that maybe this is a form of life, a way of keeping yourself and someone else afloat at the same time.


	7. War 1944

The pub is a hell-hole, the alcohol smells funny, there are some strange characters around, and Bucky Barnes fits right in. He can feel the liquor in his veins, but can't feel the buzz. All he can really feel at this moment is absolute despair, because God, this was not how things were supposed to go. Steve is here now. Steve is supposed to be in Brooklyn selling his art and living off Bucky's army pay, not sitting in the next room laughing and scheming with a bunch of army idiots.

And yet, Bucky thinks, there is something about this that feels almost natural. And that's what scares him. Not the bombs, or the bullets, or the blood (there is is much goddamn blood). What frightens Bucky the most is how much this feels like reflex rather than training. War was always alien, a distant thing of school lessons and stories told by his father. Now it seems it is the only thing he has ever known, almost as familiar as the sunshine in Steve's hair or the clear blue of his eyes.

They have both become casualties of war in their own way. Bucky sees it in Steve's eyes, in his voice and the way he carries himself. Steve Rogers was never a sloucher if he could help it, but his stance now is fiercer, more aggressive. His eyes pierce in a way they did not before, there's a hardness to his gaze that should never have to be there, that Bucky blames himself for. Maybe it's just that all the fire in Steve's blood is on the outside now too, or maybe it's that Bucky himself sees the threat in people more easily. He has always been cynical, sure, but more often he finds himself searching everything and everyone for ulterior motives. Steve doesn't though. And Bucky thinks this must be some kind of miracle, that after everything Steve has been through (and will go through) he still believes with all his heart that there is good in people. Steve still never gives up on anyone. He still hasn't given up on Bucky.

Bucky is brought out of his miserable stupor by the noticeable shift in the room when Steve enters it. Or perhaps Bucky can simply sense Steve now, like a reflex grown inside Bucky after years of constantly wanting to be near him. He adjusts himself as Steve sits down next to him at the bar, trying once again to acclimate himself to the incredible change Steve has undergone. It isn't just the broader shoulders or the straight spine, the bulging muscles or the fact that Bucky leans on him now. Steve is different, just as Bucky is.

The conversation is normal, if a little stunted, until the frightening Agent Carter In The Red Dress leaves.

"You gonna marry her?" It isn't a question of love, but Bucky can't see the point in those questions anymore.

Steve nearly chokes on his beer. "I'm sorry?"

"C'mon Steve, they didn't get my eyes." And it's a joke, really, but he sees the fierce protection flicker in Steve's eyes before he replies.

Steve takes a breath and says "I don't know. Never really thought about it."

"Well I'd start thinkin', pal. Sooner or later you'll be headin' back and you'll need someone to clean up after you."

"We'll be headin' back." Steve corrects with a frown. "I ain't lettin' one of us go anywhere without the other."

Bucky wants so very badly to kiss Steve in that moment, he thinks he might implode. But this is a pub in a war zone, so he settles for a pained smile and a hand on his shoulder. Steve returns the gesture wholeheartedly, without a care in the world what anyone might think.

"Well, it's late." Steve shifts, suddenly uncomfortable at the notion of resuming what Bucky knows is a tiresome facade.

"Yeah," he jokes, trying to reassure Steve with sarcasm and grit. "Better go find Agent Carter."

Steve stands. He glances over at the next room, where a couple of the guys are singing either a bawdy drinking song or some old Irish ballad. When his gaze flicks back to Bucky, Steve feels feels it again. The little click of something deep within him settling into place whenever he looks at Bucky, like crossing the threshold into his own home. But now it's a little different, Steve thinks. Now Bucky's eyes don't just hold the familiar promos they always have; something else entirely has joined it inside that endless stare. Something bleak and barren, almost rabid. But Steve shakes it off, because desperation has visited the both of them more times than he can count, and they might barely make it out with trails of blood and muddied souls but they will make it out of here. That's what they do, him and Bucky. They survive.


	8. Youth 1938

The door to their dingy apartment creaks as Bucky leans on it to close it, his legs about to give out beneath him after his second shift that day. The familiar smell of their tenement greets him as he kicks off dirty boots. He takes a moment to lean his head against the door behind him and muster some energy, knowing that his night is far from over.

"Buck?" Steve's voice is small and hoarse, weaker than it was yesterday, and this brings Bucky to the bed even faster.

"Yeah, Steve. I'm here." He sighs, perched on the side of the bed. Steve's pale hand finds his atop the bedding - all the blankets Bucky could scavenge and Steve is still shaking like a leaf.

"How was work-?"

"Fine, fine - Steve don't sit up, no, you're fine, here. I'm gonna go make dinner, you yell if you need anything. I'll be right back, here." Bucky scrambles out of his jacket and bangs around in the cabinets to make the fastest pair of sandwiches of his life. Because Steve sure is sick a lot, but he hasn't been this sick in a while and Bucky's getting more worried by the day.

They eat their sandwiches in relative silence and Bucky's eyes don't leave Steve for a second, counting his breaths and praying to saints and gods he doesn't believe in (But Steve does, and right now that's more than enough for Bucky). He doesn't want to make Steve feel any worse than he does, he knows this isn't a good time, but doesn't Steve deserve to know about this?

Steve, as always, beats him to it. "What's wrong?" His face is a hollow twist of concern, eyes owlish in the dim evening light.

"Nothin', just..." Bucky shifts uncomfortably. "Just some kids in the neighborhood been - well, they been -, uh, sayin' stuff again, only I keep hearin'..."

Steve's face changes to a knowing look, but the frown doesn't leave. He shifts so that he can sit almost upright, despite the nervous twitch from Bucky. His hands go to Bucky's arms and he holds him again, anchoring him to the bed. He looks straight into Bucky's eyes and Bucky can't help but think of the first time Steve did that, as Bucky pulled him up from the ground in that alley.

"Bucky," Steve says firmly. "it doesn't matter. None of that matters, it's just noise okay? You trust me?"

"Yeah, just - Steve, what if they see somethin'? What if they get somethin' we can't take back, what if they go to the police, what if-"

Steve silences him by squeezing his arms. "What if they go to the police? We'll still love each other. Dammit Bucky, you really don't think that idea terrifies me night and day? You think you're the only one worryin' 'bout us? Cause that's all I do, Buck, you know it is." Steve's face is so incredibly earnest, so full of conviction, Bucky gives in instantly.

And it's so stupid, Bucky thinks, to talk about this now. Now, when Steve is so sick and they're teetering so close to the edge again, Bucky should know better.

"I'm sorry." He sighs, and Steve falls back a little onto the pillow. "You need to rest. You're right, too. That ain't our problem right now." He leans forward and presses a small kiss to Steve's forehead. He's burning up. "Don't die in your sleep, you hear me Rogers?"

Steve coughs, and gives him a tired smirk. "Like you'd give me the chance, jerk."

"Punk." Bucky mutters under his breath, and cups Steve's face once more before getting up to wash his face.

And the winter gets colder, and Steve gets sicker. But Bucky keeps working, gets a few extra jobs here and there, and soon Steve is not quite as sick, and Bucky dares to get hopeful. Eventually he earns enough to get Steve the medicine he needs. Eventually Steve forgives him for spending precious money on the medicine.

And Bucky again notices more and more how much the two of them are changing. They were never that naive to begin with, but now they are anything but. Bucky was always cynical but now he finds trouble imagining how any of this will work out right for them. He doesn't even know what right would be; would it be leaving the city? Would it be buying a house somewhere, making lots of money, eating fancy meals every night? Would the two of them even be allowed any of that? And Steve is still getting into fights but now he won't back down for anything, even Bucky. Now he will glare at anything that moves, daring the wind to try and knock him down. If the sickness doesn't kill him, Bucky is certain that his courage will. Worst of all, Bucky worries that it's his fault. Has he dragged Steve down to a level he can't climb back up from? Part of Bucky thinks he should never have met Steve, never pulled him down into this violence and anxiety and the constant struggle. The other part of him knows he had nothing to do with it, that Steve was born of fire anyway. Either way, it isn't fair that the world has hardened Steve this way. Steve is kind and open and compassionate beyond words, and he should never have had to build these walls.

The whole world is getting darker, although Bucky can't yet tell whether it's just his perspective or not. It seems violence erupts around every corner, and everything Bucky one took for granted is being threatened, at home and in the newspapers. Even worse, Steve is noticing, and this scares Bucky most of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: violent crime in Brooklyn was skyrocketing at the end of the Depression/well into World War II, so that violence is a reference both to global events and what would have been happening in Steve and Bucky's own neighborhood. If I remember correctly there was a surge of minors with weapons (knives, etc.) and gang-related violence in the area that lead to that one radio announcement every evening that went something like "Parents, do you know where your children are?"
> 
> who knows how accurate/inaccurate my memory is! Again, comment if/when you spot inaccuracies :)


	9. War 1944

The landscape in Europe changes like the weather, with all the ferocity of the armies bloodying its grounds. Captain America is too busy winning a war to notice this with any attention, but Steve Rogers is not. Steve is still an artist, still has an eye for the beautiful and unique, and thus he is drawn to Bucky Barnes. He almost laughs at himself for noticing, but then he falls short because no, he really is amazed at the way Bucky looks, the way he takes up space. He looks the same, really - endless grey eyes, razor jaw and chocolate hair, body fluid and taut in battle as it was working long hours in Navy Yard. But Steve also knows that Bucky looks nothing like he did before - the shoulders are more filled out, hands rough from the weapons he keeps on him at all times. Bucky is rougher in general now, and Steve thinks it's sort of incredible the way he appears to blend seamlessly to this wild foreign landscape. His boots don't clunk and stomp like the others', his movements are not methodical and practiced. Bucky moves with the grace and skill of a dancer, he seems to understand every nuance of the landscape as though he was raised in it, there is no discernible line between perceiving and acting. Bucky molds into each new mountain range, each new patch of countryside, like he has known the land all his life. Steve, who cannot seem to find his balance in the majesty of the Alps or the eerie calm of the Rhineland, thinks Bucky is some sort of archaic spirit, some godsend of the ancients sent to show Steve how small and insignificant the rest of them are. It amazes him that the others don't seem to notice.

"Cap, we got two incoming" The crackle of Morita's voice over the radio rouses Steve from his reverie. His eyes shift further up the mountainside. 

"Bucky, you got that?"

"Yup."

A few kilometers away Bucky Barnes sits in a pine tree, watching two planes whir into the valley below. he takes the large rifle off his shoulder, positioning it on the branch in front of him and taking his aim through the new scope (courtesy of an insistent and somewhat overeager Mr. Stark).

"Alright, Dot," Alright, maybe Bucky names his guns. Beside the point.

His first shot is perfect, but even Bucky knows they pretty much always are. He hits the plane straight on the nose, and it spirals into its companion, sending them both crashing down the bottom of the mountain, where Steve is waiting.

Shit.

Bucky leaps from the tree, immediately setting off down the hillside, sprinting a little faster than he thought he could. When he reaches the crash site, Steve is already gone, but he sees three sets of tracks mixing together in the snow, leading farther into the valley. Just as he begins following a sudden, earsplitting screech blocks out all other noise. He looks up to see half of one of the downed planes splitting in half, blazing with flames from the fuel. He barely registers the movement before it comes crashing down on top of him.

A minute later Bucky is not dead. He raises himself up by his elbows and sees that he has been thrown several yards clear of the wreckage. As his senses return, he recognizes a blue-helmeted figure trying to pry a part of the plane's wing off themselves.

Before his mind can catch up to his body, Bucky is at Steve's side, heaving him from the wreckage and pulling him over to the shelter of a tall pine. He collapses on the ground next to Steve, who just looks at him with sheer shock as they try to catch their breath.

"I thought-"

"Clearly you didn't." Bucky is not having this. This ain't some bar back home. "What the hell, Steve?!"

Steve's eyes soften and he gives Bucky a different look, one distinctly more tender, more concerned. He swallows, shuddering at the possibility of what could've happened. "It-it was gonna crush you, Buck."

"I don't care if it was gonna rip my damn limbs off. You don't ever try to sacrifice yourself for me again, you understand? It ain't fuckin' worth it."

The hardness of Bucky's voice startles him a little, but it clearly affects Steve more strongly. He looks mortified, like a child who was just told Santa Claus isn't real, trying to reconcile years of false belief.

Bucky realizes what he's said a second later, and he deflates. His eyes widen, and Steve steadies him with both arms. Bucky suddenly looks so very lost and scared and alone. It's all Steve can do not to crush Bucky into his arms and squeeze the air from his lungs, do something to reassure him that he's safe, that he's loved, that he's not alone. Bucky slowly raises his eyes to Steve's.

Steve frowns and gives Bucky a look he will never forget. "Yes you are. You're worth twice that, okay?"

"I-I can't...let you do shit like that, I, if anything happens to you...that's why I'm here."

Steve's heart plummets at this, the weight of Bucky's words hit him like a bullet. Bucky has always been there for him, doesn't he know Steve will never go anywhere without him? "That's why I'm here too - gotta keep your ass safe too." He pulls Bucky into a fierce hug, as though if he can hide Bucky entirely in his embrace then he can shield him from the whole war.

In the end, he can't.


	10. Youth 1942

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I played around with having this before or after the last War chapter, and decided to put it before; so yes I did mess with the chapter order, surprise!

The world is at war now, and it seems to have changed everything. Which is deceptive of course, because really all the base parts of their lives have stayed the same. Steve still gets sick and picks fights, Bucky still watches over Steve and drags him out of fights.

Until the orders come. Bucky hides it so well, he should get a damn award or something for how good he is at resisting the urge to tell Steve and fall apart in his arms. But he doesn't, because if he does then he won't be able to leave, and then he'll end up in jail or something and then things will really get bad. So he reasons with himself, trying to convince himself how important this is, how he needs to do this, how it really is worth it. And it is, he knows. His old man died for this, for Christ's sake. He knows what this means, what it is. He is no stranger to this. But God, what about Steve.

Bucky has been attached to Steve as long as he can remember. Has hardly passed a full day without him, except that time when he wouldn't go near the church for a couple of weeks because of what the priest had told him at confession. But even then Steve had understood, had stayed away himself, despite his deeply instilled Catholicism ingrained by his mother and his heritage. Even then, Steve was still at Bucky's side.

So what would happen when they weren't joined at the hip? Steve knows Bucky is officially in the Army now, but there hasn't been any preparation for what would happen if and when Bucky got called up. Bucky thinks maybe the reason he can't tell Steve until the last minute is because he himself is still shocked, even though he shouldn't be.

Steve feels the shock like a bullet to the stomach. He supposes maybe he had been expecting Bucky to tell him when he got his orders, but how can he blame him for hiding it until now? How can he blame Bucky for the fear and the panic and the wanting so desperately for things to return to the way they were? He has wanted that far too often to hold it against anyone now, let alone Bucky.

So he stands up in the alley, brushes himself off, and joins Bucky on a final date. It isn't ideal, Steve knows. It should be just him and Bucky, going out for drinks and maybe a walk after, it should be just the two of them. But the both of them are too smart to do something like that in someplace like the Stark Expo. And Bucky's a huge nerd anyway, Steve thinks, so he'll have fun either way, right?

At least they'll be alone later that night,at least maybe then they'll be able to face this like real people. And Steve already knows he's gonna latch onto Bucky and never let go 'til he gets on the damn train. He needs it, and God knows Bucky needs it. 

That does happen, only what happens before doesn't go anything like Steve thought it would.

And Steve wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around Bucky and hold on like his life depends on it because there is finally a chance that Bucky will not have to do this alone. (Steve doesn't know what would happen if Bucky had to go through all of this alone). There is a small hope, no matter how fragile, that Steve will be able to follow Bucky. He might actually be able to find Bucky again, and for this he wants to kiss the frown permanently off Bucky's beautiful face. He doesn't. Instead, he gives him a hug and a promise, a silent I Love You between glances. Then Bucky actually manages to make fun of this whole thing, clicking his heels and turning an exaggerated salute into his own little promise. And then he turns, and is gone.


	11. War 1945

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you already know...

The snow is nearly blinding, but Bucky can just make out enough to see the entrance to the tunnel and the thin winding black lines of the tracks that run out of it. As he surveys the area, he becomes very aware of Steve standing behind him, his eyes trained on the back of Bucky's head.

"You still don't see the abominable snowman Barnes?" Calls Dugan over the fierce wind. 

"No, but I told the yeti I saw earlier he could have your corpse if you fall."

"Hilarious."

The radio crackles again, nearly drowned out by the wind. Bucky is having to fight a little to keep balance so close to the edge. And then someone is saying that they need to get moving, and James Barnes notices how his vision seems oddly blurred, as though he is experiencing this both from within himself and without. He shakes it off and zip lines off a cliff, eyes trained on his captain.

When they land, Steve looks back at him, a small nod of reassurance that they'll make it out of this too. Bucky returns the nod with none of the reassurance he wished he shared.

And really, it's an average mission. They get into the train without problems, the two of them working together the way they always have, relying on no one but each other. Until the routine turns to chaos before either of them knows what's happening.

The door between the cars shuts with alarming force, and Steve can see Bucky bang violently on the glass, but can't hear anything. All he can make out is the whir of weapons behind him, and he curses his reflexes as he protects himself instead of the man he came here with.

The second the Hydra soldier is down, Steve rushes to the car door to see Bucky firing the last of his rounds at another soldier. He is at Bucky's side in an instant, prying open the door with his shield. For a moment this doesn't feel like war, it just feels like the two of them are scrappy kids cornered in an alley again, the fire in both their eyes daring the bullies to touch either one of them.

And Steve thinks it's rather strange, how at this moment his mind is suddenly bombarding him with these images of his life. Until he notices he can hardly remember a part of his life that didn't involve Bucky. He fights even harder as the pieces in his brain start jumbling together, just beginning to make a little bit of sense.

Bucky tries to keep his focus where it needs to be, on protecting Steve, but something in the back of his mind keeps interfering with his concentration. He is focused on Steve, but Steve keeps distracting him. Keeps reminding Bucky of how vicious he always was, knocking the life out of one soldier after another, until one soldier hits back. Suddenly there are no more distractions, and Steve is on the ground, his breathing heavy like it was in Brooklyn, only stronger, more resilient. And all he can think is that this bastard is going to die for coming at Steve.

So he picks up his captain's shield and fires at an unknown enemy. He squeezes off two good shots before he is blown away by a blue blast. And then his hands are desperately trying to find their way back to Steve the way they would when he was fighting his nightmares on the Italian front. And Bucky is screaming, louder and harder than he ever has, and every part of him in frozen with panic as Steve's form grows smaller, smaller, until he can hardly breathe for the desperate absolute longing coursing through his freezing veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclosure: I'm not totally sure that the Commandos would have been familiar with abominable snowman/yeti, at least not in a film context. They probably would have been familiar with stories about it in print though...


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which you can clearly see that I wrote this ages ago and then didn't look at it again until just now.

The Captain has lost his sergeant, and he isn't quite sure why he's still here. The voice of a brilliant woman whispers something about dignity of choice. Steve thought he only ever loved one person so fiercely, but that voice may be all he has left to hold onto.

So he clings to that voice for dear life, even as it crackles over a fading radio signal. Even as he realizes he isn't here for the ideals he swore himself to, much as he was determined to fight for them. The Captain will always fight for him more than anything, and so, like a good soldier, he follows his sergeant.

And then the strong, brilliant voice is breaking down the way he is, but it's a little different. Her voice resonates with the same panic he heard in his own each time his sergeant went somewhere he could not, to war and then to death. But his voice is gaining a strange certainty even as he falls apart a little at each word she says. This is how it was always going to end, he thinks. One of them would go somewhere there was no returning from, and the other would follow them blindly because that was what they did. They orbited each other endlessly, pulled along by each others' gravity, until finally they'd be able to meet in the place you could only arrive at.

And so, for the first and last time, the Captain relents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know overall thoughts, and please don't hesitate to get into the Stucky Discourse with me over on Tumblr at @newspapersinyourshoess!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed (or cried, or threw something, or otherwise expressed distress)


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